Children like Dad in the driving seat

IT WAS a close race, but dads are better than mums when it comes to driving ability, according to a survey of children.

But it’s not all bad for mothers as they were voted as the most fun in the car by a ratio of almost two to one in the poll of 1,000 children aged between five and seven.

The youngsters also revealed their parents’ worst driving habits as listening to terrible music (43 per cent), singing out of key or too loudly (34 per cent) and getting road rage and shouting at other drivers (21 per cent). Shockingly, children said mothers were a fifth more likely than fathers to be guilty of using bad language.

However, perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that mums are both most fun and most likely to swear in the car, according to Carsguide.com.au.

“Mothers are more ‘tuned in’ to the children in the car, and often use the journey as a time to catch up and chat or play games with them,” Carsguide.com.au editor Karla Pincott says.

The Griswold family from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.

“But on the other hand, mums have said in previous studies that time pressure means they feel stressed on the school drop-off and work journeys – so once you add in some more stress from dealing with traffic, it’s no surprise to hear there’s the occasional bit of bad language.”

Less surprisingly, eating sweets was voted by children as the best thing about long car journeys.

Fathers narrowly came out on top in the vote on driving ability, gaining 51 per cent of votes compared with 45 per cent for mothers. The rest of the votes were for another family member such as a grandparent.

But when it came to who was best at parking, dads stretched their lead, winning 58 per cent of votes against 36 per cent for mothers.

Grandma and Granddad’s house was a favourite destination, with one in five children saying it was top of their list.Although not shy to give their views on their parents’ driving, the children may need to brush up before taking their own tests.

When tested on the meaning of symbols on a car’s dashboard, answers given included ‘ninjas’ and ‘a magician’, for the seatbelt sign, and ‘aliens’ for the petrol symbol.

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Comments on this story

Hans Posted at 2:15 AM November 13, 2012

A shopping centre in China's Hebei province has built a car park with wider spaces that it says is designed especially to suit women drivers.
The women-only car park in Shijiazhuang city is also painted in pink and light purple to appeal to female tastes.
Official Wang Zheng told AFP news agency the car park was meant to cater to women's "strong sense of colour and different sense of distance".
The parking bays are one metre (3ft) wider than normal spaces, he said.
The Wanxiang-Tiancheng shopping centre had also "installed signs and security monitoring equipment that corresponded more to women's needs", he said.
The Global Times website says female parking attendants have been trained to help guide women drivers into their parking spaces. The bays also have extra lighting.
Driving in China is a dangerous activity, with more than 200 deaths in road accidents each day last year, AFP reports, citing police statistics.

Testosterone v Common-sense Posted at 10:12 PM November 12, 2012

Men are the more skilful drivers but women are more careful, overall I rate women as the safe driver and I am a 53yo male.

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